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Biometric information is about as personal as data gets. But Google’s Android partners are still failing to protect it, as researchers from security firm FireEye will discuss this week at RSA, pointing to failures in the Samsung Galaxy S5 and other unnamed Android devices. Though the affected phone makers have tried to segment and encrypt the information in a separate secure zone, it's possible to grab the biometric data before it reaches that protected area and create copies of people's fingerprints for further attacks, said Tao Wei and Yulong Zhang from FireEye.

The issue appears startlingly straightforward: an attacker could focus on collecting data coming from the Android devices’ fingerprint sensors rather than trying to break into the trusted zone, according to Wei and Zhang, who are presenting their findings at RSA Conference tomorrow. Any hacker who can acquire user-level access and can run a program as root, the lowest level of access on computers and smartphones, can easily collect fingerprint information from the affected Android phones, they said. On the Samsung Galaxy S5, they wouldn't need to go as deep, with malware needing only system-level access.

“If the attacker can break the kernel [the core of the Android operating system], although he cannot access the fingerprint data stored in the trusted zone, he can directly read the fingerprint sensor at any time. Every time you touch the fingerprint sensor, the attacker can steal your fingerprint,” Zhang told FORBES. “You can get the data and from the data you can generate the image of your fingerprint. After that you can do whatever you want.”

Samsung Galaxy S5 is vulnerable to fingerprint attacks, says FireEye

Wei and Zhang said they had contacted Samsung, but had not heard back about any updates for users. The vulnerability is not resident on Android 5.0 Lollipop or above, so users should upgrade where they can, the researchers added.

"Samsung takes consumer privacy and data security very seriously. We are currently investigating FireEye's claims," a Samsung spokesperson said over email

The rise of biometrics

Despite manifold security concerns, biometrics are set to take over mobile devices as the primary form of authentication. Alongside Samsung's devices, Apple’s TouchID is one of the more famous, and infamously bypassed, forms of biometrics on the market. FORBES recently tested out Fujitsu’s latest infrared-based offering, which will launch in Japan on its own devices later this year, and may well land on US shores in 2016 and beyond, as it plans on shipping the tech with its mobile partners. Attempts to trick the tech with paper print outs of world leaders failed, both to my delight and dismay.

Wei and Zhang said they had not yet gone beyond testing Android devices. Though they did not claim all Android phones below 5.0 with fingerprint authentication were affected, they said the issue is likely more widespread than just Samsung's phone. Other Android devices using fingerprint sensors include the HTC One Max, the Motorola Atrix, the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 and Edge, the Galaxy S6, and the Huawei Ascend Mate 7. "We only tested a limited number of devices. While we expect the issue is more widespread, we are not sure," a FireEye spokesperson added over email.

UPDATE: FireEye wished to add the following statement: "The vulnerabilities uncovered in the Samsung Galaxy S5’s fingerprint technology were a result of lab testing by the FireEye mobile research team. We are not aware of any customers that have actually been affected by this attack in the real world. We believe newer Samsung models and OS updates along with security features, such as KNOX, have received improvements that exceed industry standards."